Sand is an excellent bedding material for animal housing. For example, sand is increasingly used as a bedding material on dairy farms for cows. When sand is used as animal bedding, the sand inevitably becomes mixed with animal waste such as manure and urine. Water is typically used to one degree or another for cleaning or for flushing and transporting the manure and sand mixture. The mixture of sand and manure and water must inevitably be dealt with. Quite commonly, the mixture is pushed, flushed, or otherwise transported to some sort of sluice where the mixture is transported by a rapidly flowing water stream to a site on the farm for further processing or storage. There is a need to separate the sand from the water, dissolved materials, and suspended manure so the sand can be re-used as bedding thus saving expense, transport, and sand disposal costs, for example. The sand-free manure and water mix can be more easily stored, pumped, used as fertilizer, or further processed in applications such as manure digesters. If the difficulty of moving and handling sand and sand laden manure can be minimized, hygiene for animals and the general farm operation are improved, environmental regulatory proscriptions can be properly met (such as reduction of emissions of undesirable gases and odors) and the abrasive impact of sand on equipment on the dairy can be reduced.